Williams: Its a language class for these motherless, shoe-less children at this shelter school. A lesson in Portuguese grammar.
The language of a long distant colonial past taught to another wretched generation of young Angolans with a dreadful future. Already children like Andre have witnessed the very worst his country can do.
Andre: While we are out getting pineapples and other things they just shoot at us.
Williams: These are not Hollywood he men. Andres never been to a cinema and hes seldom seen television.These are the images seared into his young mind by first hand experience, a witness to the horrors of an intractable civil war
Andre: This man is dragging himself along the ground and at the same time hes shooting and this one also sent a rocket to this one here and these want to invade these ones.
Williams: What were you thinking about when you drew this?
Andre: I was thinking of the fun aspect of it, and being an artist going from strength to strength. Drawing is fun and then I can go on to bigger things.
Williams: The optimism of a child made war artist. But its unlikely this 14 year old will realise any of his wide eyed ambitions.
Song
For three decades Angola has been in the grip of 2 belligerent enemies leading the nation into oblivion.
Song (Map at end of tape)
Song
Its a marathon fight that started over political ideology, a socialist government cornered by a do or die force of resourceful rebels.
Song
Trampeled in one of the worlds most entrenched civil wars, the nations future, its children.
In Africa, beyound Sierra Leona or even Somalia, Angola is now the worst place in the world to be a child.
Song
Song
Williams: Sunday service at Luandas Church of the Prophetic Spirit.
Williams: A young flock of faithful are about to be swept into a frenzy of worship.
Theyll need every ounce of faith for their life ahead. After all theyll have little else.
Theyre among the 6 million under the age of 16 in Angola -- about half the population -- the little faces behind the United Nations most appalling statistic.Poverty, hunger, disease, including the deadly risk of HIV, violent crime and of course war, conspire to make Angola the least likely place on earth a child can survive, let alone thrive.
One in every three of these children will die before theyre five. Many of the rest wont make twenty.
Williams: There is a constant stream of people like this?
Maria: Oh yes, yes, yes. There is a constant stream, there are people are on the move, on an average people arriving not just in Luanda but I mean, we estimate anywhere between seven thousand and ten thousand a day that are fleeing into areas of so-called safety.
Williams: Aid worker Maria Flynn sees the suffering of the children day after heartbreaking day.
Maria: You see this? You see her hair? This girl is severely malnourished. See the hair, its losing its colour. She has oedema. We are used to sometimes seeing pictures of children that are known as the skinny kids. They dont realise they look at this girl, says oh, she looks chubby, doesnt she? Shes severely malnourished because what you see is the swelling its oedema.Williams: So what sort of a physical future has she got? A girl like this?
Maria: Unless we feed her well and steadily, the first sickness that she gets is going to carry her off.
Williams: Would kill her?
Maria: Oh yes, yes.
We are now going into second and third generation of children and they have been, really have been conceived in violence, theyre growing in violence and the way things are going right now, very likely a lot of them are going to die in violence.
Williams: Eleven year old Vincent fled his home town in panic when fighting resumed just a few months ago.
Vincent: I got out with my mother but my father was behind in Huambo with my three brothers and sisters. Williams: What was happening in Huambo when he left? Maria: He says we left Huambo because of the war. He doesnt know anything about his father.
Williams: These people are on the run from nothing to nothing. Forced from their farms by bands of roaming UNITA rebels to the confines of a capital city barely held by the Government MPLA forces.The war strangles supply routes so food is desperately scarce.
Jakkie: Never before in this struggle between the MPLA and UNITA have they ever used hunger as a weapon to the extent that they are doing it now. The displaced people and the refugees are concentrated in those areas held by government forces. It places an extra burden on the government forces to keep these people in some state and UNITA dont really attempt at this stage to take these localities because the humanitarian crisis and problem will become theirs.
Mortar fire
Williams: Angolas diehard enemies started as partners in a 14 year struggle to overthrow Portuguese rule.They finally evicted the Europeans in 1975 and almost immediately turned on each other.
Socialist President Eduard Dos Santos enjoyed the full support of the then Soviet Union and Cuba. UNITA boss Jonas Savimbi could call on the United States and South Africa.In 1995 hostilities ceased for UN sponsored elections but when UNITA lost, the war reignited. All out government offensives have regained some recently lost ground, but so far failed to deliver a decisive military breakthrough.
Jakkie: The situation on the ground is now just an operational situation, the government has not been in a more serious situation than they currently are.
Williams: Ever?
Jakkie: Ever.
Williams: An ex South African soldier who served in Angola, Jakkie Potgeiter has spent ten years observing the conflict.
Jakkie: The ones that suffer the most from this war, has always been the Angolan people. I mean nobody cares a hoot about them, the government doesnt care about them, UNITA doesnt care about them very much. This is not really a war for democracy. Its not really a war for the people. Its not a war from the people. Its a struggle for power and a struggle for resources, and thats what makes it such a revolting situation to keep your eye on.
Mother: She got malaria and after four days she needed blood. When she got the blood her body began to swell.
Williams: Shes just three years old but as sure as any bullet shes a casualty of war.
Mother: She swells and she shrinks swells and shrinks. And she ends up like this.
Williams: Normally Alices malaria could be adequately treated here but theres simply not enough food at this relief medical centre in Luanda and thats endangering her recovery.
Doctor: If the child goes into shock due to malnutrition and the mother does not take special precautions the child reaches the point of dying.
Williams: Leprosy and cholera are common, and this year one thousand children contracted a disease virtually unheard of even in the third world - polio. Aid groups say 200 people a day could be dying from hunger-related disease, but outside the city no one has a clear picture of the toll.
Doctor: The situation is very difficult due to the war. Here in the city its actually better than in the rural areas where malnutrition is reaching levels of one hundred percent.
If it doesnt change therell be no tomorrow because the famine is everywhere.
Williams: Theres really no need for anyone to starve. One of the reasons is behind these bomb-proof doors. There's enough natural wealth here to make Angolans the most prosperous people in Africa. Already rich in oil, every year Angola produces more than a billion dollars worth of diamonds.
So Greg, how much would we be looking at?
Greg: Three and a half thousand carats.
Williams: Okay, three and a half thousand carats, and whats that in dollars?
Greg: Ranges between Id say 275 and 325 dollars US per carat.
Williams: For diamond miners SDM this million dollar pile is just three days easy haul from the Cuango River. Theyre alluvial diamonds, relatively simple to mine, and those from Angola are among the most valuable in the world.
Greg: Well, the security here is really for two reasons. One it is to protect the workers who are doing the work and its also to protect the product that they are in the process of mining.
Williams: During the peace, Australian Greg Walker helped sign a deal with the Angolan government to mine diamonds here. But since the war resumed the firm has seen the rebel forces loom large.
Greg: We stay ever vigilant because, yes, there are certainly UNITA guerillas operating in the area and you know, we know that theyre out there and its a matter of making sure that we dont get caught unawares.
Williams: Theyre nearby?
Greg: Theyre nearby.
Music
Williams: So this is how you go to work in Ozamba [sp?]. This is a work bus.
Greg: Yes.
Williams: Protecting themselves is one thing but protecting their profit is another. Increased UNITA activity has corralled SDM on to just one third of its total river lease.They still do well but the rebels do better. Up to 700 millions dollars a year in illicit diamond mining and trading.
And UNITAs four billion dollars in accrued diamond profits have been prudently invested in the worlds hottest stocks.Dragging diamonds out of the ground is clearly a lot easier than feeding the hungry.
Francesco: We fly at very high altitude to avoid any attack
Williams: Francesco Strippoli runs one of the worlds most inefficient food freighting concerns. He has no choice. With roads throughout Angola under rebel control, theres no other way to feed those starving in besieged rural towns other than by air.
Every grain of corn has to be flown out. Its expensive and dangerous but there are two million people depending on the cargo.Were aboard a World Food Program staff shuttle to one of Angolas worst hit towns, Luena in the east. Its a risky flight. At altitude were relatively safe but landing is a different matter. We have to strap ourselves in for a rapid spiralling dive to avoid UNITA rockets.In a war where food is in the firing line these lumbering supply jets make an easy target.
Singing
Luena used to be a bustling crossroads, Angolas gateway to eastern Africa. But nothing moves on these tracks any more except the homeless and war crippled whove claimed these carriages as makeshift shelter.
Singing
In another of Angolas aid camps, Ovimbundu boys manage still to celebrate. The ceremony marks their passage to manhood.Paradoxically, some of these boys may end up filling the ranks of the rebels that trap them here, their tribe is after all the backbone of UNITAS forces.But others will never leave. They call this place Camuzanguissa the place were forced to live.
As pawns in the power struggle between two diehard enemies, Luenas hungry are left to scratch for food. When the aid supplies get through, each family receives one bag of corn to last one month. Of course it never does.
Luena has been refuge for Angolans at many stages of this protracted war. The sheer weight of their number has imposed itself dramatically on the surrounding environment. The land stripped bare in a quest for cooking fuel, its now literally disappearing from under their feet.
Twenty-four year old Benita Vumbi [sp?] is one of the few who's seen the horror beyond the towns outskirts. Nursing her eight year old son, she walked 80 kilometres through UNITA territory to save him from starvation.
Mother: There is not enough food anywhere and there are attacks in different spots around the village all the time. Its very, very dangerous.
Street sounds
Williams: In the rural reaches and here in the capital Luanda, the destitution and deprivation is all around. Its little wonder the UN came to its conclusion about the plight of Angolas young.
Horacio: On the street there is no future for the kids theres only delinquency and premature death by illness or by bullets or they end up in jail and will end up dying through lack of nutrition.The first sign of illness will kill them.
Williams: At his shelter Catholic priest Father Horacio Renaldo cares for the few he can take in, and gives them a start they never got from their missing families.Among them Andre, the budding artist, scarred by war and the night he lost his loved ones.
Andre: We were sleeping when the soldiers came in. Mother tried to hide us, but they searched all over. They took my mother and my sister and when my father saw how many soldiers there were he tried to run- but they cut him on the shoulder. I started crying as I was with my little sister and brother and now I dont know where anyone is.
Williams: Andre still hopes to find his family alive but for now it's enough to keep himself alive living in the hostile streets of Luanda.
Andre: The most difficult thing about living on the streets is finding food. I have to beg. I do small jobs and carry water into buildings and scratch for food to eat. I also started stealing but I was getting caught, and they beat me. All I wanted was something to eat.
Williams: When Andre can't find room at the shelter, he lives in unimaginable squalor, in, or rather under, the capital.
Andre: When it rains no one can sleep here, but its not a problem, we feel okay.
Williams: In the worst place in the world to be a child, this must be the worst address. Andre and other teens share the city sewer.
Redshirt Boy: Hey shut your mouth, prick - this is my castle!Other boy: Weve got something for you Redshirt Boy: My castle, not your castle! Here only I sleep!
Boy with damaged arm: Look at this!Redshirt Boy: These are the pure riches of Angola. Look how beautiful
Williams: And even in this stinking filth the children still manage to make something of their lot - an effort to feed themselves from a vegetable garden planted in the septic sludge.
Redshirt Boy: Look, this is corn tomatoes
Williams: And springing from the sewage out the back a small patch of entrepreneurial agriculture - a cash crop of marijuana.It's a pitiful life in an awful backwater of Africa's nightmare nursery .
The language of a long distant colonial past taught to another wretched generation of young Angolans with a dreadful future. Already children like Andre have witnessed the very worst his country can do.
Andre: While we are out getting pineapples and other things they just shoot at us.
Williams: These are not Hollywood he men. Andres never been to a cinema and hes seldom seen television.These are the images seared into his young mind by first hand experience, a witness to the horrors of an intractable civil war
Andre: This man is dragging himself along the ground and at the same time hes shooting and this one also sent a rocket to this one here and these want to invade these ones.
Williams: What were you thinking about when you drew this?
Andre: I was thinking of the fun aspect of it, and being an artist going from strength to strength. Drawing is fun and then I can go on to bigger things.
Williams: The optimism of a child made war artist. But its unlikely this 14 year old will realise any of his wide eyed ambitions.
Song
For three decades Angola has been in the grip of 2 belligerent enemies leading the nation into oblivion.
Song (Map at end of tape)
Song
Its a marathon fight that started over political ideology, a socialist government cornered by a do or die force of resourceful rebels.
Song
Trampeled in one of the worlds most entrenched civil wars, the nations future, its children.
In Africa, beyound Sierra Leona or even Somalia, Angola is now the worst place in the world to be a child.
Song
Song
Williams: Sunday service at Luandas Church of the Prophetic Spirit.
Williams: A young flock of faithful are about to be swept into a frenzy of worship.
Theyll need every ounce of faith for their life ahead. After all theyll have little else.
Theyre among the 6 million under the age of 16 in Angola -- about half the population -- the little faces behind the United Nations most appalling statistic.Poverty, hunger, disease, including the deadly risk of HIV, violent crime and of course war, conspire to make Angola the least likely place on earth a child can survive, let alone thrive.
One in every three of these children will die before theyre five. Many of the rest wont make twenty.
Williams: There is a constant stream of people like this?
Maria: Oh yes, yes, yes. There is a constant stream, there are people are on the move, on an average people arriving not just in Luanda but I mean, we estimate anywhere between seven thousand and ten thousand a day that are fleeing into areas of so-called safety.
Williams: Aid worker Maria Flynn sees the suffering of the children day after heartbreaking day.
Maria: You see this? You see her hair? This girl is severely malnourished. See the hair, its losing its colour. She has oedema. We are used to sometimes seeing pictures of children that are known as the skinny kids. They dont realise they look at this girl, says oh, she looks chubby, doesnt she? Shes severely malnourished because what you see is the swelling its oedema.Williams: So what sort of a physical future has she got? A girl like this?
Maria: Unless we feed her well and steadily, the first sickness that she gets is going to carry her off.
Williams: Would kill her?
Maria: Oh yes, yes.
We are now going into second and third generation of children and they have been, really have been conceived in violence, theyre growing in violence and the way things are going right now, very likely a lot of them are going to die in violence.
Williams: Eleven year old Vincent fled his home town in panic when fighting resumed just a few months ago.
Vincent: I got out with my mother but my father was behind in Huambo with my three brothers and sisters. Williams: What was happening in Huambo when he left? Maria: He says we left Huambo because of the war. He doesnt know anything about his father.
Williams: These people are on the run from nothing to nothing. Forced from their farms by bands of roaming UNITA rebels to the confines of a capital city barely held by the Government MPLA forces.The war strangles supply routes so food is desperately scarce.
Jakkie: Never before in this struggle between the MPLA and UNITA have they ever used hunger as a weapon to the extent that they are doing it now. The displaced people and the refugees are concentrated in those areas held by government forces. It places an extra burden on the government forces to keep these people in some state and UNITA dont really attempt at this stage to take these localities because the humanitarian crisis and problem will become theirs.
Mortar fire
Williams: Angolas diehard enemies started as partners in a 14 year struggle to overthrow Portuguese rule.They finally evicted the Europeans in 1975 and almost immediately turned on each other.
Socialist President Eduard Dos Santos enjoyed the full support of the then Soviet Union and Cuba. UNITA boss Jonas Savimbi could call on the United States and South Africa.In 1995 hostilities ceased for UN sponsored elections but when UNITA lost, the war reignited. All out government offensives have regained some recently lost ground, but so far failed to deliver a decisive military breakthrough.
Jakkie: The situation on the ground is now just an operational situation, the government has not been in a more serious situation than they currently are.
Williams: Ever?
Jakkie: Ever.
Williams: An ex South African soldier who served in Angola, Jakkie Potgeiter has spent ten years observing the conflict.
Jakkie: The ones that suffer the most from this war, has always been the Angolan people. I mean nobody cares a hoot about them, the government doesnt care about them, UNITA doesnt care about them very much. This is not really a war for democracy. Its not really a war for the people. Its not a war from the people. Its a struggle for power and a struggle for resources, and thats what makes it such a revolting situation to keep your eye on.
Mother: She got malaria and after four days she needed blood. When she got the blood her body began to swell.
Williams: Shes just three years old but as sure as any bullet shes a casualty of war.
Mother: She swells and she shrinks swells and shrinks. And she ends up like this.
Williams: Normally Alices malaria could be adequately treated here but theres simply not enough food at this relief medical centre in Luanda and thats endangering her recovery.
Doctor: If the child goes into shock due to malnutrition and the mother does not take special precautions the child reaches the point of dying.
Williams: Leprosy and cholera are common, and this year one thousand children contracted a disease virtually unheard of even in the third world - polio. Aid groups say 200 people a day could be dying from hunger-related disease, but outside the city no one has a clear picture of the toll.
Doctor: The situation is very difficult due to the war. Here in the city its actually better than in the rural areas where malnutrition is reaching levels of one hundred percent.
If it doesnt change therell be no tomorrow because the famine is everywhere.
Williams: Theres really no need for anyone to starve. One of the reasons is behind these bomb-proof doors. There's enough natural wealth here to make Angolans the most prosperous people in Africa. Already rich in oil, every year Angola produces more than a billion dollars worth of diamonds.
So Greg, how much would we be looking at?
Greg: Three and a half thousand carats.
Williams: Okay, three and a half thousand carats, and whats that in dollars?
Greg: Ranges between Id say 275 and 325 dollars US per carat.
Williams: For diamond miners SDM this million dollar pile is just three days easy haul from the Cuango River. Theyre alluvial diamonds, relatively simple to mine, and those from Angola are among the most valuable in the world.
Greg: Well, the security here is really for two reasons. One it is to protect the workers who are doing the work and its also to protect the product that they are in the process of mining.
Williams: During the peace, Australian Greg Walker helped sign a deal with the Angolan government to mine diamonds here. But since the war resumed the firm has seen the rebel forces loom large.
Greg: We stay ever vigilant because, yes, there are certainly UNITA guerillas operating in the area and you know, we know that theyre out there and its a matter of making sure that we dont get caught unawares.
Williams: Theyre nearby?
Greg: Theyre nearby.
Music
Williams: So this is how you go to work in Ozamba [sp?]. This is a work bus.
Greg: Yes.
Williams: Protecting themselves is one thing but protecting their profit is another. Increased UNITA activity has corralled SDM on to just one third of its total river lease.They still do well but the rebels do better. Up to 700 millions dollars a year in illicit diamond mining and trading.
And UNITAs four billion dollars in accrued diamond profits have been prudently invested in the worlds hottest stocks.Dragging diamonds out of the ground is clearly a lot easier than feeding the hungry.
Francesco: We fly at very high altitude to avoid any attack
Williams: Francesco Strippoli runs one of the worlds most inefficient food freighting concerns. He has no choice. With roads throughout Angola under rebel control, theres no other way to feed those starving in besieged rural towns other than by air.
Every grain of corn has to be flown out. Its expensive and dangerous but there are two million people depending on the cargo.Were aboard a World Food Program staff shuttle to one of Angolas worst hit towns, Luena in the east. Its a risky flight. At altitude were relatively safe but landing is a different matter. We have to strap ourselves in for a rapid spiralling dive to avoid UNITA rockets.In a war where food is in the firing line these lumbering supply jets make an easy target.
Singing
Luena used to be a bustling crossroads, Angolas gateway to eastern Africa. But nothing moves on these tracks any more except the homeless and war crippled whove claimed these carriages as makeshift shelter.
Singing
In another of Angolas aid camps, Ovimbundu boys manage still to celebrate. The ceremony marks their passage to manhood.Paradoxically, some of these boys may end up filling the ranks of the rebels that trap them here, their tribe is after all the backbone of UNITAS forces.But others will never leave. They call this place Camuzanguissa the place were forced to live.
As pawns in the power struggle between two diehard enemies, Luenas hungry are left to scratch for food. When the aid supplies get through, each family receives one bag of corn to last one month. Of course it never does.
Luena has been refuge for Angolans at many stages of this protracted war. The sheer weight of their number has imposed itself dramatically on the surrounding environment. The land stripped bare in a quest for cooking fuel, its now literally disappearing from under their feet.
Twenty-four year old Benita Vumbi [sp?] is one of the few who's seen the horror beyond the towns outskirts. Nursing her eight year old son, she walked 80 kilometres through UNITA territory to save him from starvation.
Mother: There is not enough food anywhere and there are attacks in different spots around the village all the time. Its very, very dangerous.
Street sounds
Williams: In the rural reaches and here in the capital Luanda, the destitution and deprivation is all around. Its little wonder the UN came to its conclusion about the plight of Angolas young.
Horacio: On the street there is no future for the kids theres only delinquency and premature death by illness or by bullets or they end up in jail and will end up dying through lack of nutrition.The first sign of illness will kill them.
Williams: At his shelter Catholic priest Father Horacio Renaldo cares for the few he can take in, and gives them a start they never got from their missing families.Among them Andre, the budding artist, scarred by war and the night he lost his loved ones.
Andre: We were sleeping when the soldiers came in. Mother tried to hide us, but they searched all over. They took my mother and my sister and when my father saw how many soldiers there were he tried to run- but they cut him on the shoulder. I started crying as I was with my little sister and brother and now I dont know where anyone is.
Williams: Andre still hopes to find his family alive but for now it's enough to keep himself alive living in the hostile streets of Luanda.
Andre: The most difficult thing about living on the streets is finding food. I have to beg. I do small jobs and carry water into buildings and scratch for food to eat. I also started stealing but I was getting caught, and they beat me. All I wanted was something to eat.
Williams: When Andre can't find room at the shelter, he lives in unimaginable squalor, in, or rather under, the capital.
Andre: When it rains no one can sleep here, but its not a problem, we feel okay.
Williams: In the worst place in the world to be a child, this must be the worst address. Andre and other teens share the city sewer.
Redshirt Boy: Hey shut your mouth, prick - this is my castle!Other boy: Weve got something for you Redshirt Boy: My castle, not your castle! Here only I sleep!
Boy with damaged arm: Look at this!Redshirt Boy: These are the pure riches of Angola. Look how beautiful
Williams: And even in this stinking filth the children still manage to make something of their lot - an effort to feed themselves from a vegetable garden planted in the septic sludge.
Redshirt Boy: Look, this is corn tomatoes
Williams: And springing from the sewage out the back a small patch of entrepreneurial agriculture - a cash crop of marijuana.It's a pitiful life in an awful backwater of Africa's nightmare nursery .